Residual drift demands in moment‐resisting steel frames subjected to narrow‐band earthquake ground motions

This paper presents the main results of the evaluation of residual inter‐story drift demands in typical moment‐resisting steel buildings designed accordingly to the Mexican design practice when subjected to narrow‐band earthquake ground motions. Analytical 2D‐framed models representative of the study‐case buildings were subjected to a set of 30 narrow‐band earthquake ground motions recorded on stations placed in soft‐soil sites of Mexico City, where most significant structural damage was found in buildings as a consequence of the 1985 Michoacan earthquake, and scaled to reach several levels of intensity to perform incremental dynamic analyses. Thus, results were statistically processed to obtain hazard curves of peak (maximum) and residual drift demands for each frame model. It is shown that the study‐case frames might exhibit maximum residual inter‐story drift demands in excess of 0.5%, which is perceptible for building's occupants and could cause human discomfort, for a mean annual rate of exceedance associated to peak inter‐story drift demands of about 3%, which is the limiting drift to avoid collapse prescribed in the 2004 Mexico City Seismic Design Provisions. The influence of a member's post‐yield stiffness ratio and material overstrength in the evaluation of maximum residual inter‐story drift demands is also discussed. Finally, this study introduces response transformation factors, T_p, that allow establishing residual drift limits compatible with the same mean annual rate of exceedance of peak inter‐story drift limits for future seismic design/evaluation criteria that take into account both drift demands for assessing a building's seismic performance. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shake‐table tests of a reinforced concrete frame designed following modern codes: seismic performance and damage evaluation

This paper presents shake‐table tests conducted on a two‐fifths‐scale reinforced concrete frame representing a conventional construction design under current building code provisions in the Mediterranean area. The structure was subjected to a sequence of dynamic tests including free vibrations and four seismic simulations in which a historical ground motion record was scaled to levels of increasing intensity until collapse. Each seismic simulation was associated with a different level of seismic hazard, representing very frequent, frequent, rare and very rare earthquakes. The structure remained basically undamaged and within the inter‐story drift limits of the ‘immediate occupancy’ performance level for the very frequent and frequent earthquakes. For the rare earthquake, the specimen sustained significant damage with chord rotations of up to 28% of its ultimate capacity and approached the upper bound limit of inter‐story drift associated with ‘life safety’. The specimen collapsed at the beginning of the ‘very rare’ seismic simulation. Besides summarizing the experimental program, this paper evaluates the damage quantitatively at the global and local levels in terms of chord rotation and other damage indexes, together with the energy dissipation demands for each level of seismic hazard. Further, the ratios of column‐to‐beam moment capacity recommended by Eurocode 8 and ACI‐318 to guarantee the formation of a strong column‐weak beam mechanism are examined. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of a recently proposed record selection and scaling procedure for low‐rise to mid‐rise reinforced concrete buildings and its use for probabilistic risk assessment studies

This paper evaluates a recent record selection and scaling procedure of the authors that can determine the probabilistic structural response of buildings behaving either in the elastic or post‐elastic range. This feature marks a significant strength on the procedure as the probabilistic structural response distribution conveys important information on probability‐based damage assessment. The paper presents case studies that show the utilization of the proposed record selection and scaling procedure as a tool for the estimation of damage states and derivation of site‐specific and region‐specific fragility functions. The method can be used to describe exceedance probabilities of damage limits under a certain target hazard level with known annual exceedance rate (via probabilistic seismic hazard assessment). Thus, the resulting fragility models can relate the seismicity of the region (or a site) with the resulting building performance in a more accurate manner. Under this context, this simple and computationally efficient record selection and scaling procedure can be benefitted significantly by probability‐based risk assessment methods that have started to be considered as indispensable for developing robust earthquake loss models. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seismic behavior of steel buildings with out‐of‐plumb

A structure that has a permanent offset from a true vertical line is commonly referred to as being ‘out‐of‐plumb’. Out‐of‐plumb may result from construction tolerances or post‐earthquake permanent deformations in steel buildings. This paper quantifies the displacements of buildings with out‐of‐plumb in subsequent seismic events by means of inelastic dynamic time history analysis. Structures considered have different structural heights, force design reduction factors (R), and target inter‐story drifts. It is shown that buildings with greater out of plumb and force design reduction factor have larger normalized peak inter‐story drift ratio and ratio of residual‐to‐peak drift. Also, the ratio of residual‐to‐peak drift was not strongly dependent on structural height or design drift. A design procedure and example provided, based on the results obtained, show how peak and residual inter‐story drift ratio can be estimated. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seismic response estimation method for earthquake‐damaged RC buildings

This study proposes a procedure for identifying spectral response curves for earthquake‐damaged areas in developing countries without seismic records. An earthquake‐damaged reinforced concrete building located in Padang, Indonesia was selected to illustrate the identification of the maximum seismic response during the 2009 West Sumatra earthquake. This paper summarizes the damage incurred by the building; the majority of the damage was observed in the third story in the span direction. The damage was quantitatively evaluated using the damage index R according to the Japanese guidelines for post‐earthquake damage evaluation. The damage index was also applied to the proposed spectral response identification method. The seismic performance of the building was evaluated by a nonlinear static analysis. The analytical results reproduced a drift concentration in the third story. The R‐index decreased with an increase in the story drift, which provided an estimation of the maximum response of the building during the earthquake. The estimation was verified via an earthquake response analysis of the building using ground acceleration data, which were simulated based on acceleration records of engineering bedrock that considered site amplification. The maximum response estimated by the R‐index was consistent with the maximum response obtained from the earthquake response analysis. Therefore, the proposed method enables the construction of spectral response curves by integrating the identification results for the maximum responses in a number of earthquake‐damaged buildings despite a lack of seismic records. Copyright © 2016 The Authors. Earthquake Engineering & Structural Dynamics published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Generalized force vectors for multi‐mode pushover analysis of torsionally coupled systems

A generalized multi‐mode pushover analysis procedure was developed for estimating the maximum inelastic seismic response of symmetrical plan structures under earthquake ground excitations. Pushover analyses are conducted with story‐specific generalized force vectors in this procedure, with contributions from all effective modes. Generalized pushover analysis procedure is extended to three‐dimensional torsionally coupled systems in the presented study. Generalized force distributions are expressed as the combination of modal forces to simulate the instantaneous force distribution acting on the system when the interstory drift at a story reaches its maximum value during seismic response. Modal contributions to the generalized force vectors are calculated by a modal scaling rule, which is based on the complete quadratic combination. Generalized forces are applied to the mass centers of each story incrementally for producing nonlinear static response. Maximum response quantities are obtained when the individual frames attain their own target interstory drift values in each story. The developed procedure is tested on an eight‐story frame under 15 ground motions, and assessed by comparing the results obtained from nonlinear time history analysis. The method is successful in predicting the torsionally coupled inelastic response of frames responding to large interstory drift demands. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conditional spectrum‐based ground motion selection. Part II: Intensity‐based assessments and evaluation of alternative target spectra

In a companion paper, an overview and problem definition was presented for ground motion selection on the basis of the conditional spectrum (CS), to perform risk‐based assessments (which estimate the annual rate of exceeding a specified structural response amplitude) for a 20‐story reinforced concrete frame structure. Here, the methodology is repeated for intensity‐based assessments (which estimate structural response for ground motions with a specified intensity level) to determine the effect of conditioning period. Additionally, intensity‐based and risk‐based assessments are evaluated for two other possible target spectra, specifically the uniform hazard spectrum (UHS) and the conditional mean spectrum (CMS, without variability).It is demonstrated for the structure considered that the choice of conditioning period in the CS can substantially impact structural response estimates in an intensity‐based assessment. When used for intensity‐based assessments, the UHS typically results in equal or higher median estimates of structural response than the CS; the CMS results in similar median estimates of structural response compared with the CS but exhibits lower dispersion because of the omission of variability. The choice of target spectrum is then evaluated for risk‐based assessments, showing that the UHS results in overestimation of structural response hazard, whereas the CMS results in underestimation. Additional analyses are completed for other structures to confirm the generality of the conclusions here. These findings have potentially important implications both for the intensity‐based seismic assessments using the CS in future building codes and the risk‐based seismic assessments typically used in performance‐based earthquake engineering applications. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Loss estimation for non‐ductile reinforced concrete building in Victoria,British Columbia,Canada: effects of mega‐thrust Mw9‐class subduction earthquakes and aftershocks

This paper presents, within the performance‐based earthquake engineering framework, a comprehensive probabilistic seismic loss estimation method that accounts for main sources of uncertainty related to hazard, vulnerability, and loss. The loss assessment rigorously integrates multiple engineering demand parameters (maximum and residual inter‐story drift ratio and peak floor acceleration) with consideration of mainshock–aftershock sequences. A 4‐story non‐ductile reinforced concrete building located in Victoria, British Colombia, Canada, is considered as a case study. For 100 mainshock and mainshock–aftershock earthquake records, incremental dynamic analysis is performed, and the three engineering demand parameters are fitted with a probability distribution and corresponding dependence computed. Finally, with consideration of different demolition limit states, loss assessment is performed. From the results, it can be shown that when seismic vulnerability models are integrated with seismic hazard, the aftershock effects are relatively minor in terms of overall seismic loss (1–4% increase). Moreover, demolition limit state parameters, uncertainties of collapse fragility, and non‐collapse seismic demand prediction models have showed significant contribution to the loss assessment. The seismic loss curves for the reference case and for cases with the varied parameters can differ by as large as about 150%. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Conditional spectrum‐based ground motion record selection using average spectral acceleration

The use of a seismic intensity measure (IM) is paramount in decoupling seismic hazard and structural response estimation when assessing the performance of structures. For this to be valid, the IM needs to be sufficient;that is, the engineering demand parameter (EDP) response should be independent of other ground motion characteristics when conditioned on the IM. Whenever non‐trivial dependence is found, such as in the case of the IM being the first‐mode spectral acceleration, ground motion selection must be employed to generate sets of ground motion records that are consistent vis‐à‐vis the hazard conditioned on the IM. Conditional spectrum record selection is such a method for choosing records that are consistent with the site‐dependent spectral shape conditioned on the first‐mode spectral acceleration. Based on a single structural period, however the result may be suboptimal, or insufficient, for EDPs influenced by different period values, for example, peak interstory drifts or peak floor accelerations at different floors, potentially requiring different record suites for each. Recently, the log‐average spectral acceleration over a period range, AvgSA, has emerged as an improved scalar IM for building response estimation whose hazard can be evaluated using existing ground motion prediction equations. Herein, we present a recasting of conditional spectrum record selection that is based on AvgSA over a period range as the conditioning IM. This procedure ensures increased efficiency and sufficiency in simultaneously estimating multiple EDPs by means of a single IM. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Uniform hazard versus uniform risk bases for performance‐based earthquake engineering of light‐frame wood construction

This paper investigates the implications of designing for uniform hazard versus uniform risk for light‐frame wood residential construction subjected to earthquakes in the United States. Using simple structural models of one‐story residences with typical lateral force‐resisting systems (shear walls) found in buildings in western, eastern and central regions of the United States as illustrations, the seismic demands are determined using nonlinear dynamic time‐history analyses, whereas the collapse capacities are determined using incremental dynamic analyses. The probabilities of collapse, conditioned on the occurrence of the maximum considered earthquakes and design earthquakes stipulated in ASCE Standard 7‐05, and the collapse margins of these typical residential structures are compared for typical construction practices in different regions in the United States. The calculated collapse inter‐story drifts are compared with the limits stipulated in FEMA 356/ASCE Standard 41‐06 and observed in the recent experimental testing. The results of this study provide insights into residential building risk assessment and the relation between building seismic performance implied by the current earthquake‐resistant design and construction practices and performance levels in performance‐based engineering of light‐frame wood construction being considered by the SEI/ASCE committee on reliability‐based design of wood structures. Further code developments are necessary to achieve the goal of uniform risk in earthquake‐resistant residential construction. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tall building performance‐based seismic design using SCEC broadband platform site‐specific ground motion simulations

The scarcity of strong ground motion records presents a challenge for making reliable performance assessments of tall buildings whose seismic design is controlled by large‐magnitude and close‐distance earthquakes. This challenge can be addressed using broadband ground‐motion simulation methods to generate records with site‐specific characteristics of large‐magnitude events. In this paper, simulated site‐specific earthquake seismograms, developed through a related project that was organized through the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC) Ground Motion Simulation Validation (GMSV) Technical Activity Group, are used for nonlinear response history analyses of two archetype tall buildings for sites in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino. The SCEC GMSV team created the seismograms using the Broadband Platform (BBP) simulations for five site‐specific earthquake scenarios. The two buildings are evaluated using nonlinear dynamic analyses under comparable record suites selected from the simulated BBP catalog and recorded motions from the NGA‐West database. The collapse risks and structural response demands (maximum story drift ratio, peak floor acceleration, and maximum story shear) under the BBP and NGA suites are compared. In general, this study finds that use of the BBP simulations resolves concerns about estimation biases in structural response analysis which are caused by ground motion scaling, unrealistic spectral shapes, and overconservative spectral variations. While there are remaining concerns that strong coherence in some kinematic fault rupture models may lead to an overestimation of velocity pulse effects in the BBP simulations, the simulations are shown to generally yield realistic pulse‐like features of near‐fault ground motion records.     

Structural performance assessment under near‐source pulse‐like ground motions using advanced ground motion intensity measures

This paper demonstrates the effectiveness of utilizing advanced ground motion intensity measures (IMs) to evaluate the seismic performance of a structure subject to near‐source ground motions. Ordinary records are, in addition, utilized to demonstrate the robustness of the advanced IM with respect to record selection and scaling. To perform nonlinear dynamic analyses (NDAs), ground motions need to be selected; as a result, choosing records that are not representative of the site hazard can alter the seismic performance of structures. The median collapse capacity (in terms of IM), for example, can be systematically dictated by including a few aggressive or benign pulse‐like records into the record set used for analyses. In this paper, the elastic‐based IM such as the pseudo‐spectral acceleration (S_a) or a vector of S_a and epsilon has been demonstrated to be deficient to assess the structural responses subject to pulse‐like motions. Using advanced IMs can be, however, more accurate in terms of probabilistic response prediction. Scaling earthquake records using advanced IMs (e.g. inelastic spectral displacement, S_di, and IM _1I&2E; the latter is for the significant higher‐mode contribution structures) subject to ordinary and/or pulse‐like records is efficient, sufficient, and robust relative to record selection and scaling. As a result, detailed record selection is not necessary, and records with virtually any magnitude, distance, epsilon and pulse period can be selected for NDAs. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A vector‐valued ground motion intensity measure consisting of spectral acceleration and epsilon

The ‘strength’ of an earthquake ground motion is often quantified by an Intensity Measure (IM), such as peak ground acceleration or spectral acceleration at a given period. This IM is used to predict the response of a structure. In this paper an intensity measure consisting of two parameters, spectral acceleration and epsilon, is considered. The IM is termed a vector‐valued IM, as opposed to the single parameter, or scalar, IMs that are traditionally used. Epsilon (defined as a measure of the difference between the spectral acceleration of a record and the mean of a ground motion prediction equation at the given period) is found to have significant ability to predict structural response. It is shown that epsilon is an indicator of spectral shape, explaining why it is related to structural response. By incorporating this vector‐valued IM with a vector‐valued ground motion hazard, we can predict the mean annual frequency of exceeding a given value of maximum interstory drift ratio, or other such response measure. It is shown that neglecting the effect of epsilon when computing this drift hazard curve leads to conservative estimates of the response of the structure. These observations should perhaps affect record selection in the future. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A methodology for defining seismic scenario‐structure‐based limit state criteria for rc high‐rise wall buildings using net drift

As a result of population growth and consequent urbanization, the number of high‐rise buildings is rapidly growing worldwide resulting in increased exposure to multiple‐scenario earthquakes and associated risk. The wide range in frequency contents of possible strong ground motions can have an impact on the seismic response, vulnerability and limit states definitions of RC high‐rise wall structures. Motivated by the pressing need to derive more accurate fragility relations to be used in seismic risk assessment and mitigation of such structures, a methodology is proposed to obtain reliable, Seismic Scenario‐Structure‐Based (SSSB) definitions of limit state criteria. A 30‐story wall building, located in a multi‐seismic scenario study region, is utilized to illustrate the methodology. The building is designed following modern codes and then modeled using nonlinear fiber‐based approach. Uncertainty in ground motions is accounted for by the selection of forty real earthquake records representing two seismic scenarios. Seismic scenario‐based building local response at increasing earthquake intensities is mapped using Multi‐Record Incremental Dynamic Analyses (MRIDAs) with a new scalar intensity measure. Net Inter‐Story Drift (NISD) is selected as a global damage measure based on a parametric study involving seven buildings ranging from 20 to 50 stories. This damage measure is used to link local damage events, including shear, to global response under different seismic scenarios. While the study concludes by proposing SSSB limit state criteria for the sample building, the proposed methodology arrives at a reliable definition of limit state criteria for an inventory of RC high‐rise wall buildings under multiple earthquake scenarios. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seismic design and hybrid tests of a full‐scale three‐story buckling‐restrained braced frame using welded end connections and thin profile

A series of hybrid and cyclic loading tests were conducted on a three‐story single‐bay full‐scale buckling‐restrained braced frame (BRBF) at the Taiwan National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering in 2010. Six buckling‐restrained braces (BRBs) including two thin BRBs and four end‐slotted BRBs, all using welded end connection details, were installed in the frame specimen. The BRBF was designed to sustain a design basis earthquake in Los Angeles. In the first hybrid test, the maximum inter‐story drift reached nearly 0.030 rad in the second story and one of the thin BRBs in the first story locally bulged and fractured subsequently before the test ended. After replacing the BRBs in the first story with a new pair, a second hybrid test with the same but reversed direction ground motion was applied. The maximum inter‐story drifts reached more than 0.030 rad and some cracks were found on the gusset welds in the second story. The frame responses were satisfactorily predicted by both OpenSees and PISA3D analytical models. The cyclic loading test with triangular lateral force distribution was conducted right after the second hybrid test. The maximum inter‐story drift reached 0.032, 0.031, and 0.008 rad for the first to the third story, respectively. This paper then presents the findings on the local bulging failure of the steel casing by using cyclic test results of two thin BRB specimens. It is found that the steel casing bulging resistance can be computed from an equivalent beam model constructed from the steel core plate width and restraining concrete thickness. This paper concludes with the recommendations on the seismic design of thin BRB steel casings against local bulging failure. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Shake‐table test performance of an inertial force‐limiting floor anchorage system

A new floor connecting system developed for low‐damage seismic‐resistant building structures is described herein. The system, termed Inertial Force‐Limiting Floor Anchorage System (IFAS), is intended to limit the lateral forces in buildings during an earthquake. This objective is accomplished by providing limited‐strength deformable connections between the floor system and the primary elements of the lateral force‐resisting system. The connections transform the seismic demands from inertial forces into relative displacements between the floors and lateral force‐resisting system. This paper presents the IFAS performance in a shake‐table testing program that provides a direct comparison with an equivalent conventional rigidly anchored‐floor structure. The test structure is a half‐scale, 4‐story reinforced concrete flat‐plate shear wall structure. Precast hybrid rocking walls and special precast columns were used for test repeatability in a 22‐input strong ground‐motion sequence. The structure was purposely designed with an eccentric wall layout to examine the performance of the system in coupled translational‐torsional response. The test results indicated a seismic demand reduction in the lateral force‐resisting system of the IFAS structure relative to the conventional structure, including reduced shear wall base rotation, shear wall and column inter‐story drift, and, in some cases, floor accelerations. These results indicate the potential for the IFAS to minimize damage to the primary structural and non‐structural components during earthquakes.     

Seismic response evaluation of the linked column frame system

The linked column frame (LCF) system is proposed as a seismic load resisting system that uses conventional components to limit seismic damage to relatively easily replaced elements. The LCF features a primary lateral system, denoted the linked column, which is made up of dual columns connected with replaceable links, and a secondary flexible moment frame system with beams having fully restrained connections at one end and simple connections at the other. The linked columns are designed to limit seismic forces and provide energy dissipation via link yielding, while preventing damage to the moment frame under certain earthquake hazard levels. A design procedure is proposed that ensures plastic hinges develop in the links of the linked columns at a significantly lower story drift than when plastic hinges develop in the moment frame beams. The large drift difference helps enable design of this system for two distinct performance states: rapid return to occupancy, where only link damage occurs and relatively simple link replacement is possible, and collapse prevention, where both the links and the beams of the moment frame may be damaged. A series of 3‐story, 6‐story, and 9‐story prototype LCF buildings were designed using the proposed design approach. Nonlinear models were developed for the designs with the link models validated using recent experimental results. The seismic response of these systems was investigated for ground motions representing various seismic hazard levels. Results show that the LCF system not only provides collapse prevention, but also has the capability of limiting economic loss by reducing structural damage and allowing for rapid return to occupancy following earthquakes with shorter return periods. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seismic evaluation of 1940s asymmetric wood‐frame building using conventional measurements and high‐definition laser scanning

This study presents results from shake table experiments of a wood‐frame building conducted at the University of California, Berkeley. A 13.5‐ft × 19.5‐ft two‐story wood‐frame building representing San Francisco 1940s design of a residential building with a garage space on the first story (house‐over‐garage) was tested. The test building was subjected to scaled ground motion based on Los Gatos record from Loma Prieta 1989 earthquake. The strong motion time history was scaled to match design spectra of a site in Richmond district of San Francisco. The test results demonstrated the seismic vulnerability of the test building due to soft story mechanism and significant twisting when shaken in two horizontal directions. In addition to conventional instrumentation for measuring acceleration and position of selected points of the test building, high‐definition laser scanning technology was employed to assess global and local anomalies of the building after the shake table tests. The analysis conducted in this study showed very good correlation between conventional data recorded from position transducers and the laser scans. These laser scans expanded limits of conventional data at discrete points and allowed analyzing the whole building after shaking. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of the structural damage of high‐rise reinforced concrete buildings using ambient vibrations recorded before and after damage

Evaluation of the degrees of structural damage suffered by high‐rise residential buildings after being subjected to strong ground motions is extremely important to the development of life continuity planning for building residents. However, these evaluations cannot be based on strong‐motion records alone, because earthquake observation equipment is not installed in most such buildings in Japan. In this study, we propose simple equations for estimating the stiffness degradation rate and the peak inter‐story drift ratio (PIDR) by using ambient vibration records instead of strong‐motion records when high‐rise RC buildings are subjected to a severe earthquake. More specifically, we propose one equation that relates the square root of the stiffness degradation rate, which is the ratio of natural frequencies at the maximum response to the preliminary tremor response (elastic state), in strong‐motion records with the ratio of natural frequencies identified from ambient vibrations before and after damage was suffered. We also propose an equation that relates the PIDR with the stiffness degradation rate on the basis of the stiffness‐degrading bilinear restoring force characteristic derived from the strong‐motion records of 13 high‐rise buildings for the 1995 Hyogoken‐Nanbu Earthquake (Mw 6.9) and the 2011 Tohoku‐Oki Earthquake (Mw 9.0). Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluation of residual drift demands in regular multi‐storey frames for performance‐based seismic assessment

This paper summarizes results of a comprehensive analytical study aimed at evaluating the amplitude and heightwise distribution of residual drift demands in multi‐storey moment‐resisting frames after earthquake excitation. For that purpose, a family of 12 one‐bay two‐dimensional generic frame models was subjected to an ensemble of 40 ground motions scaled to different intensities. In this investigation, an inelastic ground motion intensity measure was employed to scale each record, which allowed reducing the record‐to‐record variability in the estimation of residual drift demands. The results were statistically processed in order to evaluate the influence of ground motion intensity, number of stories, period of vibration, frame mechanism, system overstrength, and hysteretic behaviour on central tendency of residual drift demands. In addition, a special emphasis was given to evaluate the uncertainty in the estimation of residual drift demands. Results of incremental dynamic analyses indicate that the amplitude and heightwise distribution of residual drift demands strongly depends on the frame mechanism, the heightwise system structural overstrength and the component hysteretic behaviour. An important conclusion for performance‐based assessment is that the evaluation of residual drift demands involves significantly larger levels of uncertainty (i.e. record‐to‐record variability) than that of maximum drift demands, which suggests that this variability and corresponding uncertainty should be explicitly taken into account when estimating residual drift demands during performance‐based seismic assessment of frame buildings. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.